Nashik police nab two chain snatchers, solve 11 cases

Nashik: The city police arrested two chain snatchers and recovered two gold chains they allegedly stole recently, the police said on Saturday.Police commissioner Sandeep Karnik also called the two chain robbery victims to the police commissionerate and handed over their lost gold chains.The arrested chain robbers have been identified as Shubham Maurya (25) and Swadesh Maurya (25), both from Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh. They had been residing in a rented room at Sanjeev Nagar, Ambad Link Road, Ambad.The crime branch Unit 2 collected information about chain snatchers in the city against the backdrop of rising cases of robberies, and the instructions from police commissioner Sandeep Karnik, DCP (crime) Kirankumar Chavan, and ACP (crime) Sandeep Mitke to take action against chain snatchers in the city.On Feb 8 and 9, there were two back-to-back cases of chain robberies in the city in the Ambad and Gangapur Road areas. After checking CCTV camera footage of the area, the police found that the criminals arrived on a bike, and one of them walked towards the victims, snatched the gold chain, and then escaped on the bike.The police subsequently checked close to 150 CCTV camera footages, after which assistant inspector Samadhan Hire and constable Prakash Mahajan got information that the duo were arriving at a particular place to sell off their stolen gold chains. The police then laid a trap and arrested the duo on Wednesday.Assistant inspector Hemant Todkar of the crime branch Unit 2 said Shubham was employed as a worker in the city. A few months back, Swadesh came to Nashik as he had committed crimes in his hometown. Swadesh gave Shubham an easy way of making money instead of doing hard work. They began committing chain robberies in Sept last year. They committed three chain robberies in the Gangapur area, five in the Indiranagar area, and one each in the Ambad, Satpur, and Sarkarwada areas of the city.